Men's Tennis No. 2 Overall Seed

NORMAN, Okla. — The University of Oklahoma men’s tennis team was selected as the No. 2 overall seed, its highest berth in program history, for the 2014 NCAA Championships.

For the fifth straight year, OU will serve as host of one of 16 regional sites.

First and second round competition will begin Saturday, May 10, at the Headington Family Tennis Center. Auburn and Harvard will square off at 11 a.m. Oklahoma faces Montana at 2 p.m.

The winners of each match play at 2 p.m. Sunday in the second round.

Single-session tickets for the NCAA Tennis First and Second Rounds go on sale at the OU Athletics Tickets Office Wednesday at 8 a.m. CT. Prices for adult tickets are $5. Youths (ages 3-18), OU Students (with valid OU ID), and groups of 10 or more are $3 each. Call ahead for group orders at 1-800-456-GoOU.

Southern Cal earned the No. 1 overall seed. Ohio State, whom the Sooners dispatched earlier this season to earn the top weekly national ranking, was No. 3 and Virginia No. 4.

Oklahoma (23-3) fell 4-3 in a lengthy match to Baylor in the Big 12 Championship final. Despite the disappointment, OU head coach John Roddick said the Sooners have turned their focus to a greater goal.

“Losing, I think, actually helped our outlook,” Roddick said. “We did a lot of things we needed to do and proved a lot of things to ourselves. We proved that we’re playing better in every spot. Even though we didn’t win, we played well.

“We won a lot of matches this year not playing well. That’s a sign of a good team, when you don’t play well and you still win. This tournament, a team that wins isn’t going to be one that didn’t play well. The Big 12 Tournament just proved to us that we can play with anyone 1 through 6.”

Oklahoma is unfamiliar with its first round opponent.

“We don’t know Montana at all,” head coach John Roddick said. “It’s always a little tough when you have never seen them or don’t know anything about them.”

Montana earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships after being crowned champions of the Big Sky Conference, a first for that program.

“We have close to two weeks for preparation, which is needed. We need to practice and have some things to work on. We have a chance to get better between now and the start of the tournament.”

Winners from each of the 16 regions move on to the round of 16 hosted at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Individual selections for the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Tennis Championships will be announced Wednesday, April 30.

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